Blender

Blender is the full 3D suite that studios, indie game developers, product designers and motion graphics artists use for modelling, sculpting, animation, rendering, compositing and video editing. There is no plan or tier: the whole program is free software under the GNU GPL, and the current stable release is Blender 5.2 LTS.

What the free plan gives you

Every feature, on Windows, macOS and Linux, with no licence key or account. That includes polygon, curve and NURBS modelling, multi-resolution sculpting with dynamic topology, rigging and animation with inverse kinematics and shape keys, the Cycles path tracer and the EEVEE real-time renderer, a node-based compositor, a non-linear Video Sequence Editor, and physics simulation for smoke, fluids, cloth, hair and rigid bodies. Python scripting and the add-on ecosystem are open too. Work you make in Blender is yours to sell.

Where the free plan stops

Nothing in the software is gated. The costs that exist are optional: a Blender Studio subscription for training and production files, paid add-ons from third-party marketplaces, and the hardware to render on. The Blender Foundation runs on donations and corporate development fund members. The genuine limit is the learning curve rather than a paywall.

Who it suits

Anyone doing 3D work, from a first tutorial through to feature film shots, can run Blender without ever paying. If your pipeline needs a specific commercial package for studio compatibility (Maya, Houdini, Cinema 4D), that is a workflow decision rather than a limitation of the free tier.